"Drinking etiquette is the first thing you teach foreign guests," says Bryan Do, a Korean-American director at the South Korean branch of a U.S. company.

"It was shocking when I first arrived in Korea.

"My boss was a graduate of Korea University [renowned for its hardy drinking culture] and at my first hoesik, we started out with everyone filling a beer glass with soju, and downing it on the spot. That was just the beginning."

Open up

For Koreans, drinking is considered a way to get to know what someone is really like.

"I didn't really like it in the beginning," says Charles Lee, a Korean-Canadian who came to Seoul to work for a South Korean company. "I was like, 'Why are you making me drink something when I don't want to?' But once I understood the meaning behind it, I appreciated it more.

Anthony Bourdain meets up with Mark Yin, a former member of Korean hip-hop group Drunken Tiger, for a bowl of bugs on "Parts Unknown."

"There are just some things you can't say at work or talk about over lunch -- people who talk about work at lunch are losers. But when someone offers you a glass of soju, it's an invitation that means that they want to listen to you.

"I thought Koreans were impersonal before I drank with them, so the whole context is important."

Drinking is such a big part of Korean life that Seoul traffic is said to correspond with the city's drinking culture.